How do you define "fact" and "thing"? Here's my definitions:
Fact: true proposition — Relativist
Thing: an existent
So by my definitions, the statement is false. The world consists of things. Facts describe things, their properties, and relations between things.
What are the facts about?
I can only see one answer. — Sir2u
But then the question seems to remain as to whether objects (or things) are something over and above their relations — Janus
But then the question seems to remain as to whether objects (or things) are something over and above their relations — Janus
Materialists assume that they are, but it's just an unsupported assumption of a brute-fact. — Michael Ossipoff
Idealists would say they are not, but it's just an unsupported assumption of a brute-fact. — Janus
This. Fact's exist relative to an observer. It's a fact. — Posty McPostface
.”But then the question seems to remain as to whether objects (or things) are something over and above their relations “— Janus
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”Materialists assume that they are, but it's just an unsupported assumption of a brute-fact.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Idealists would say they are not, but it's just an unsupported assumption of a brute-fact.
That isn’t an assumption, and it’s supportable and supported, and it doesn’t entail a brute-fact. — Michael Ossipoff
Can either of you please suggest a good book in the secondary literature as an introduction to Wittgenstein? — bloodninja
Are facts necessarily about things? What if things are defined by the facts about them? — BlueBanana
.”But then the question seems to remain as to whether objects (or things) are something over and above their relations.” — Janus
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“Materialists assume that they are […that “things are something over and above their relations], but it's just an unsupported assumption of a brute-fact.” — Michael Ossipoff
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“Idealists would say they are not, but it's just an unsupported assumption of a brute-fact.--Janus
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“That isn’t an assumption, and it’s supportable and supported, and it doesn’t entail a brute-fact.” — Michael Ossipoff
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“Of course it is an assumption, and of course it would entail the brute fact, (if it were true) that objects are not anything over and above their relations. It would be a brute, i.e. inexplicable, fact either way.”—Janus
Are facts necessarily about things? What if things are defined by the facts about them? — BlueBanana
But, after all the world is the totality of facts, not things. — Posty McPostface
there seems to be some general agreement that things are an illusion created by the human mind — Jake
But a metaphysics built on abstract-facts, such as abstract implications, is the unparsimonious metaphiysics, because it doesn't assume or claim the "existence" (whatever that would mean) of anything describable. — Michael Ossipoff
How would those abstractions be undescribable? — BlueBanana
And do you mean this system would be the one where the universe is defined as the totality of its things or facts?
How would those abstractions be undescribable? And do you mean this system would be the one where the universe is defined as the totality of its things or facts? — BlueBanana
Are facts necessarily about things? What if things are defined by the facts about them? — BlueBanana
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